Lord Mitchell - Honorary Fellow 2011

Lord Mitchell holds a BSc (Econ) from the University of London and an MBA from Columbia University, New York.


As a business entrepreneur he founded, developed and subsequently sold three international companies in the IT services sector: Standard Chartered Leasing plc; United Leasing plc and Syscap plc.

As a political entrepreneur he helped found the SDP in 1980 and stood twice for Parliament: in Ealing Acton (1983) and then in Salisbury (1987). Parry Mitchell takes politics very seriously.

More recently Parry is a social entrepreneur: he formed and chaired the e-Learning Foundation, a charity which works with schools, parents and other stakeholders to ensure that all children have access to learning technologies when and where they need them, both at home and at school. In addition Parry chaired Weizmann UK from 2006 until 2009 and continues to sit on its Executive Board in Israel; he is directing an initiative called Making Connections which is successfully enabling Israeli and British top level academics to collaborate on very high level scientific research projects. He is the chair of the Coexistence Trust whose mission is to encourage dialogue between Muslim and Jewish students on UK campuses; finally he is a trustee of his family charitable trust, the Lowy Mitchell Foundation which primarily funds educational projects


Parry was ennobled in 2000 and takes the Labour whip. He has sat on the Science and Technology Select Committee.